Explaining the Impact of Restorative Justice. The "4-Way Interaction" of Morality, Neutralization, Shame and Bonds.

Source: (2004) Thesis prepared for the M.Phil in Criminology/Criminological Research. Institute of Criminology. University of Cambridge.

Reading the words of the title, “restoration, morality, neutralisation, shame, bonds”, one might ask whether it is a sociological, psychological or criminological study; whether it is about theoretical or about policy-related issues and does it focus on causes or rather on results. The present study intents to create links between all the categories mentioned above. The starting point is that there has been a conflict – let us call it ‘crime’ by using the legal dictionary –, and we would like to react to it. In our response we use the paradigm of “restorative justice”. The purpose of this study is to explore why we chose this concept, and what is its possible impact on those who have been involved in the conflict with special regard to the offender. (excerpt)